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News About Tech, Money and InnovationTue, 31 Mar 2015 20:51:30 +0000en-UShourly1http://wordpress.org/?v=4.1.1Copyright 2015, VentureBeatApp downloads are slightly down from January — but user acquisition is way up from last yearhttp://venturebeat.com/2015/03/31/app-downloads-are-slightly-down-from-january-but-user-acquisition-is-way-up-from-last-year/
http://venturebeat.com/2015/03/31/app-downloads-are-slightly-down-from-january-but-user-acquisition-is-way-up-from-last-year/#commentsTue, 31 Mar 2015 17:00:49 +0000http://venturebeat.com/?p=1688132Download volumes for top apps are still at record highs.
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The Fiksu App Store Competitive Index tracks the average daily download volume of the top 200 free iOS apps, and it shows a whopping 9.7 million daily downloads for February, which is 6 percent down from January. Still, that download volume is up 43 percent over last year’s. And Fiksu’s Cost Per Loyal User index, which measures the cost of acquiring a user who opens an app three times, is also down from the previous month, dipped 3 percent from January to $2.80. But that’s still quite a bit more than this time last year — 76 percent more.

The cost of acquiring loyal users shows a lull for February, and that’s most likely the result of a shorter month and some slowdown on holiday spending, Fiksu says. The company’s Cost Per Install index, which measures the cost per app installs directly tied to ads, shows at $1.28 for iOS, which was about the same as January. But like the competitive index figures for the month, it’s up 17 percent over last year. On the Android side, things were about the same for the month, with the CPI at $1.51.

“With the Cost per Loyal User being 76 percent higher than last year, but the Cost per Install either dropping or remaining flat, it suggests that competition is getting higher,” said Stewart Rogers, an analyst at VB Insight. “Although still a niche area of marketing technology, I expect that more app developers will follow the example set by the likes of Starbucks, PopCap, Kiloo, and Alaska Airlines, who all use mobile marketing automation [MMA] solutions to increase loyalty, lifetime customer value, and engagement. A recent report by John Koetsier suggests the MMA industry is growing fast, and many solutions are available to smaller developers; MMA isn’t just for the big brands.”

“Marketers are becoming familiar with the ebbs and flows of seasonal behavior and the February Indexes reflect the revisiting of priorities and planning for Q2 spending,” said Micah Adler, the CEO of Fiksu. “Moving forward, we can expect more use of strategic spending practices via programmatic advertising and improved targeting as marketers seek to both scale and stand out from their competition.”

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]]>0App downloads are slightly down from January — but user acquisition is way up from last yearImmersion wants to add rumble to your mobile games without killing your batteryhttp://venturebeat.com/2015/03/31/with-everyone-muting-mobile-games-the-haptics-specialists-at-immersion-have-a-replacement/
http://venturebeat.com/2015/03/31/with-everyone-muting-mobile-games-the-haptics-specialists-at-immersion-have-a-replacement/#commentsTue, 31 Mar 2015 15:35:35 +0000http://venturebeat.com/?p=1688286Immersion has a new product that it claims is capable of the best haptics ever on smartphones and tablets.
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The company that’s responsible for the rumble in your Xbox One and PlayStation 4 controllers wants to elevate your interactions with mobile gaming through touch.

Immersion, a technology company focused on haptic feedback in devices, revealed today that it’s launching its new TouchSense Engage produce for mobile. This is a suite of tools developers can use to add a huge number of custom touch and vibration events to matchup various actions in a game without draining the battery. With revenues on mobile reaching $30 billion, many developers are looking for any possible advantage — and Immersion is positioning TouchSense Engage as something that can provide that separation.

“We’ve been at this for a long time,” Immersion head of mobile gaming Nick Thomas told GamesBeat. “We’ve been creating technology and hardware solutions. We’ve enabled our partners to add haptics into peripherals for console and PC gaming. We’ve really taken all of that learning and rolled it into what we’re working on now, which is TouchSense Engage.”

Thomas explained that Immersion’s latest product works a lot like audio design. Developers can add extra feedback that shakes the device in a very specific way to help gamers realize they’ve done something good. Different actions, powerups, and celebrations can all set off different TouchSense Engage profiles. Players will naturally look forward to that feedback and could potentially find more enjoyment from a game thanks to it.

And the idea of touch feedback working like audio design is important on mobile. Nearly one in four people play with the sound off on their smartphones or tablets, according to analytics company Appington. In places like the U.K., nearly half of all mobile gamers play without sound.

Gaming without audio removes a huge chunk of the positive and negative feedback that players normally receive. Immersion expects developers will turn to TouchSense Engage to fill in that silence.

“We’re able to really convey a much higher resolution of detail and expression through haptics than we’ve ever been able to in the past,” said Thomas. “Our SDK unlocks the ability to drive the hardware in amazing ways.”

This includes subtle vibrations to staccato-style pulses that can indicate everything from foot steps to the rumbling of a roller coaster. You can get an idea of TouchSense’s capabilities by downloading the company’s showcase app.

What about the battery?

You’re probably wondering about what all this vibrating is going to do to your battery life. Well, Immersion says it’s not something people should worry about.

“The impact on power consumption is actually less than driving audio to the speaker a lot of times,” said Thomas.

Immersion provided GamesBeat with one of its own internal reports to back up that claim.

“The study found that overall demands on the battery for a device that powered 25 haptics-enabled phone calls, 50 text messages, 4 hours of e-mail, and two hours of gaming in a single, 24-hour session, were minor,” read the report. “The percentage of battery capacity required to power all of these use-cases ranged from .95 percent to 7.1 percent.”

Thomas said that the battery-life question is the one he gets the most, but he expects most people will get over it once they see that the power needs are not that demanding. But many gamers will likely want to see that for themselves before taking his word for it.

Doing more than just inventing the tech

Immersion has worked on haptics since 1993. For most of that time, it has built the tech and let developers go off and figure it out. Not anymore. Now, the company wants to work with its partners to help them get the most out of the latest produce.

“I think one of the core takeaways from what we’re doing with TouchSense Engage is the proactive approach we’re taking with developers,” said Thomas.

The company has an in-house team of user-experience designers who are prepared to work with developers from around the world. They will come up with ideas and test them and use their expertise to make Immersion’s partner games better.

“In the gaming community, there is a constant push to be on the cutting edge of both technology and creativity,” said Thomas. “We’re seeing demand from top studios for tactile effects that are custom designed to enhance gameplay and work hand-in-hand with the audio and visual elements of the game. The TouchSense Engage solution pushes mobile game makers to think about the design of their game in a new dimension.”

And Immersion wants to help studios figure out that new dimension.

TouchSense Engage is available now. Developers can try a free evaluation version on the company’s website. Studios can also request a light version of the development kit that doesn’t feature custom effects. To get the full library of possible effects, however, Immersion will license the TouchSense Engage to studios who need it.

]]>0Immersion wants to add rumble to your mobile games without killing your batteryWhatsApp for Android now lets all users make voice callshttp://venturebeat.com/2015/03/31/all-whatsapp-users-can-now-access-the-voice-call-feature-on-android/
http://venturebeat.com/2015/03/31/all-whatsapp-users-can-now-access-the-voice-call-feature-on-android/#commentsTue, 31 Mar 2015 10:46:19 +0000http://venturebeat.com/?p=1688358WhatsApp's move to support voice calls is nearing completion, as news emerges that anyone on Android can now make calls in-app to other WhatsApp users.
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WhatsApp’s much discussed move to support voice calls is nearing completion, as news emerges that anyone on Android can now make calls in-app to other WhatsApp users.

The Facebook-owned mobile messaging company first revealed its plans to introduce voice calls way back in February last year, but it wasn’t until the past few months when the feature first started showing up in some Android users’ apps. Things subsequently opened up a little, with the feature being made available to anyone who received a call from another WhatsApp user who had voice calls unlocked.

Now, you’ll see an extra tab beside Contacts and Chats called — drum roll — Calls. You then tap the little call icon at the top right-hand side, and you’ll be able to call your WhatsApp contacts. Based on our tests, the call quality was pretty awful though, with huge lags in the conversation. It’s clearly not a finished feature, so hopefully WhatsApp will still improve on it in the coming weeks and months.

WhatsApp cofounder Brian Acton also recently revealed the voice call feature would be arriving on iOS in the coming weeks.

WhatsApp’s move to include voice calls follows the convergence trend we’ve seen across the mobile messaging realm. Indeed, the degree of differentiation between the various players is shrinking, with the likes of Viber, Korea’s Kakao Talk, Facebook Messenger, Japan’s Line, and now WhatsApp all offering voice.

Google today updated Gmail for Android with a slew of new features for managing your email on the go. You can download the new version now directly from Google Play.

First and foremost, the app now lets you view all your mail at once, regardless of which account it’s from, via the new “All Inboxes” option. In short, this view lets you read and respond to all your messages without having to switch between accounts.

This is a feature that probably should have been there from the start, or at least when Gmail gained support for multiple email accounts. Still, better late than never.

Next up, threaded conversations are now available for Yahoo, Outlook.com, and other IMAP/POP accounts. This means all your messages, not just those sent to your Gmail account, can now be stacked into individual conversations.

If you were holding back from using the Gmail app to handle all your email, the above two features should help you change your mind. Given that Android 5.0 Lollipop replaces Google’s Email app with Gmail, this is an inevitable progression.

Google says it has also improved Gmail’s search functionality. The Android app now features “better” auto-complete, so you can find what you need even faster.

It’s not clear what exactly “better” entails, but based on the screenshot above, we assume the search function simply offers more suggestions. That said, we’re not sure how a search for “we” brought up either of the two emails since we can’t see their full contents.

In today’s update, Google is also promising more responsive animations, larger attachment previews, and the ability to save files to Google Drive with a single tap. The company did not say when it expects to bring these improvements over to its iOS app, which got its own sizable update earlier this month.

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]]>0Gmail for Android gets All Inboxes view, threaded conversations for all accounts, better autocomplete, and moreApple expands iPhone trade-in program to include Android, BlackBerry, Windows Phone, and PCshttp://venturebeat.com/2015/03/30/apple-expands-iphone-trade-in-program-to-include-android-blackberry-windows-phone-and-pcs/
http://venturebeat.com/2015/03/30/apple-expands-iphone-trade-in-program-to-include-android-blackberry-windows-phone-and-pcs/#commentsMon, 30 Mar 2015 15:31:31 +0000http://venturebeat.com/?p=1687729Apple wants to make it easy for you to switch.
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Apple today expanded its iPhone trade-in program to include select Android, BlackBerry, and Windows Phone smartphones. The company also now accepts PCs from certain manufacturers via its Reuse and Recycle program.

The trade-in program, available online and in-store, includes certain Samsung, HTC, LG, Nokia, Sony, and BlackBerry devices. Credit you receive for your old smartphone, in the form of an Apple Store gift card or bank transfer, has to be used toward the immediate purchase of a new iPhone 5c, iPhone 6, or iPhone 6 Plus.

The expanded trade-in program is available in France, Italy, the U.K., and the U.S. The smartphone part of the program is arranged in partnership with third-party device buyback and trade-in company Brightstar Corporation, while the PC part is being handled by third-party vendor Dataserv, according to MacRumors.

This explains how Apple can offer such a program: Partnering with third parties means the company can push its own products without having to deal with the process of refurbishing and selling non-Apple hardware. Apple is naturally interested in offering more incentive for those considering switching from Android, BlackBerry, Windows, and Windows Phone.

Apple first launched its iPhone Reuse and Recycle trade-in program in August 2013, though it has since expanded to include iPads and Macs. The company didn’t make a specific announcement today; it merely updated the individual retail store pages in the relevant countries.

In September, Apple posted a support document titled Move content from your Android phone to iPhone. The company is increasingly acknowledging its competitors, something that simply did not happen just a few years ago, in an attempt to boost sales.

Keep in mind that trade-in programs typically don’t offer a particularly good deal for your old device. If, however, you want convenience, they are certainly better than dealing with trying to find a buyer on Craigslist or Kijiji.

It’s common knowledge that Microsoft has an app problem, both with Windows and Windows Phone. The state of both has been improving steadily for a while now, but developers still largely don’t care anywhere nearly as much as they do about Android or iOS.

Internally, Microsoft has explored various ways of offering Android apps on Windows and Windows Phone, including by way of an emulator (similar to how BlackBerry allows Android apps to run on its devices). The rumor that Android apps will one day run on Windows devices is one that simply refuses to die.

While such a strategy is attractive for many reasons, mainly because it could potentially solve the app quantity problem on Windows quickly, it’s the wrong approach. Microsoft should instead woo Android and iOS developers to use its developer tools, and then deploy their apps to Google Play and/or Apple’s App Store, in addition to the Windows Store.

That way, the company avoids potential performance problems, possible legal issues, and can still ensure apps are built specifically for Windows 10, as opposed to simply getting a flood of apps repurposed from other platforms. The pitch would be quite straightforward: “Use the best developer tools on the planet to build apps that reach the millions of new Windows 10 devices on top of the millions of Android and iOS devices.”

This is not a new strategy. Microsoft has started down this road with Visual Studio’s adoption of Apache Cordova, an open source platform for building multidevice hybrid mobile applications using HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. But those are very basic apps.

Microsoft’s next step is to offer tools that could directly compete with Apple’s and Google’s offerings. iOS tools are already quite advanced and Google has finally ramped up its efforts with Android Studio, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t room to wedge in between the two.

It’s no wonder the rumor of Microsoft acquiring Xamarin, which lets developers use C# to build native Android, iOS, Mac, and Windows apps, keeps popping up every few months. When it comes to supporting programming languages for building on non-Microsoft platforms, there’s absolutely no reason why Microsoft should stop at HTML.

Despite its failures in mobile, Redmond is still known for how well it supports developers. And again, the company would be able to make a very unique offer: If you use our tools, you’ll simply be able to reach more users. Instead of developing for just Android, or just iOS, or even just Android and iOS, why not build for Android and Windows 10, or iOS and Windows 10, or all three?

That’s something Apple would never do, and given its disregard for Windows Phone, neither would Google. Despite a multitude of mistakes in mobile, Microsoft still finds itself in a very powerful position: It has the money, resources, and expertise to win over developers. Furthermore, even though Windows Phone is a very distant third to Android and iOS, the Windows Store on Windows 10 will be pushed to millions of users because it will work across PCs, tablets, and smartphones. That’s potentially very enticing for app developers.

In short, Microsoft needs to expand its cross-platform strategy for developers. The perfect time is coming to do exactly that: The company’s Build conference is just a month away.

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]]>0How Microsoft should woo Android and iOS developers to build Windows 10 appsWatch out! All that Meerkating and Periscoping could slam your mobile data limitshttp://venturebeat.com/2015/03/29/watch-out-all-that-meerkating-and-periscoping-could-slam-your-mobile-data-limits/
http://venturebeat.com/2015/03/29/watch-out-all-that-meerkating-and-periscoping-could-slam-your-mobile-data-limits/#commentsSun, 29 Mar 2015 13:00:43 +0000http://venturebeat.com/?p=1687343It's so easy to broadcast live streaming video these days that users may not realize they're using up a lot of mobile data. And fast.
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Josh Miller, who works on Facebook’s product team, thinks red-hot mobile live-streaming apps like Periscope and Meerkat are “cool art projects,” but that we’re a couple years too early for the technology.

And why? For one thing, Miller told VentureBeat on Twitter recently, connection speeds aren’t good enough. And that’s to say nothing of the impact of such apps on “phone and data plan costs.”

Sure enough, you’re already starting to see people report that thanks to using these apps — which allow anyone to easily broadcast live streaming video to the world from their iPhone or Android phone with just a few taps — they’ve gone over their monthly mobile data limits.

40 percent of Meerkat streams are on carrier networks

The amount of data a stream uses varies from service to service, and of course, if you’re Meerkating or streaming from Periscope on a Wi-Fi network, then it’s probably not an issue. But Ryan Cooley, the cofounder of Meerkat, told VentureBeat that 40 percent of all the streams on the service are broadcast over carrier networks.

Twitter, which owns Periscope and launched it last week, would not say what the corresponding figure is for that service. But a source with knowledge of the technology told VentureBeat that Periscope’s data demand is roughly equivalent to that of Apple’s FaceTime service.

Again, every live-streaming app uses different technology. But one would have to assume there are some general similarities in how they work and the amount of data they consume.

Of course, as Jeremy Martin, the CTO of Stre.am (yet another mobile live-streaming app that launched recently), put it in an email to VentureBeat, there are “quite a few factors that have a direct impact on how much data is consumed while broadcasting or watching.”

Among them? Users’ current network strength. “If we detect that you’re having trouble pushing video over the wire fast enough,” Martin said, “we actually begin to dynamically drop frames to try and keep up. Even over faster networks, the throughput is impacted by the codecs and quality levels that your device is capable of handling, which isn’t consistent either.”

But in the end, Martin said, a rule of thumb is that a livestream broadcast over Stre.am sucks up about 3.3 megabytes per minute of live video.

That means, on a plan allowing up to 2 gigabytes of data usage per month with no overage fees, you’d be able to shoot about 10.1 hours of video a month on Stre.am — if you didn’t use any other data at all. Neither Meerkat nor Twitter would say what the corresponding figures were for their services. However, David Gibbons, the vice president of marketing at Ustream, long a leading provider of live-streaming technology, said users of that service could typically expect to safely stream about seven or eight hours of video without going over their caps.

Still, while most people may not ever approach that level of broadcasting, some are clearly starting to think that if live-streaming is here to stay, and not a fad, there’s going to be a bottom line cost. “For sure people are concerned about the cost to your data,” Gibbons said, which you’re “going to consume relatively quickly.”

Although some carriers, like T-Mobile, offer pricey unlimited data plans, most users have limits. It might be 2 gigabytes of data, or it might be more. Typically, if you go over your limit — and you’ll likely get multiple warnings from your carrier before you do — you pay a per-gigabyte fee that can be in the $15 range. But those in the business are hoping that the dynamics surrounding mobile data plans may soon change.

“Mobile bandwidth is becoming more plentiful and accessible, as local network infrastructure improves, and telco models begin to shift to accommodate this,” said Meerkat’s Cooley, pointing to T-Mobile’s unlimited data plan offering. “Things are moving forward in terms of mobile data access, not backward.”

Above: Meerkat has attracted more than 300,000 users in just a month.

Image Credit: Meerkat

To Gibbons, it’s all about market pressures. The more people see the need for services like live-streaming apps, the more “people are going to want free access to data everywhere.”

And while we might think that carriers like AT&T, Verizon, Sprint, and others are out to squeeze us for every dime, there’s also the reality that they will figure out ways to profit even if they play along. “Carriers are going to go along with it,” Gibbons said. “They will formulate plans that will (allow unlimited data usage) at prices that work for them. … I think the mobile carriers will like it, because they’ll be able to get more revenue from consumers.”

At the same time, Gibbons added, as people use more and more video, there will be increasing pressure on the developers of services like Meerkat, Periscope, Ustream, and Stre.am to come up with more efficient video compression technology. There’s a reason, after all, that the fictional company Pied Piper won TechCrunch Disrupt on the HBO series Silicon Valley for its groundbreaking compression algorithm.

When digital cameras became a commodity device, and even more, when most people began to have smartphones, we saw that taking photographs was cheap. We took way more than we could ever process. Although we all love our cats and kids and food, if we’re honest, we know that the vast majority of the pictures we take are poor. Yet the cost is low. Already, we’re seeing that most of the live-streaming that’s going on is hardly going to win a Peabody award.

But Cooley thinks there’s larger social issues at work. “Introducing Meerkat [was] the beginning of a long play to usher in live video as a social medium,” he said. “There will be adoption pains, but we believe the culture is ripe to embrace this participation-based video medium.”

When Microsoft announced plans yesterday to launch Windows 10 this summer in 190 countries, the company also revealed plans to test Windows 10 on Xiaomi’s Mi 4 devices, which ship with Google’s Android. Details were scarce, however, as Microsoft only shared two sentences about the experimental program — Chinese electronics company Xiaomi today offered more details.

For reference, here is what Microsoft originally communicated:

Through a new program with Xiaomi, one of the top smartphone distributors in the world, a select group of Xiaomi Mi 4 power users will be invited to help test Windows 10 and contribute to its future release later this year. These power users will have the opportunity to download the Windows 10 Technical Preview — installing it and providing their feedback to Microsoft.

Hugo Barra, vice president of international for Xiaomi (and previously vice president and product spokesman of Google’s Android division), has explained that Microsoft is developing a custom build of Windows 10 Technical Preview specifically for Mi 4 phones, deployment of which is made easier since they ship with an unlocked bootloader. Barra also emphasized that this is an experimental program led by Microsoft and has no effect on Xiaomi’s Android efforts.

The custom build will be offered to a “small number” of Mi 4 power users from the Xiaomi Forum in China. Mi 4 owners who choose to participate in this experimental program will have to manually re-flash their devices with this Windows 10 ROM, just like they would re-flash other Android ROMs (this runs contrary to rumors that Microsoft will offer a tool that somehow “converts” Android to Windows).

This means the Windows 10 build will not run on top of Android, but will replace it completely. Also, for those hoping for a dual-boot option that allows switching between Microsoft’s and Google’s operating systems, you’re out of luck.

Here are Barra’s four points, quoted in full:

This is an experimental program led by Microsoft, working directly with the Mi fan community in China.

Microsoft is working on a build of Windows 10 specifically for Mi 4 devices. This Windows 10 build will not be running on top of Android nor be available as a dual-boot option. A small number of Mi 4 power users from the Xiaomi Forum in China who choose to take part in this experimental program will have to manually re-flash their Mi 4 devices with this Windows 10 ROM, in the same way they would re-flash other Android ROMs.

At Xiaomi, we are very supportive of users trying new things and we encourage them to do so all the time! That’s why all of our devices ship with unlocked bootloader, for example. That’s also why Xiaomi welcomes Microsoft team members to interact directly with members of the Xiaomi Forum in China. More details will be announced by Microsoft in the coming months. This program will only be available in China.

Xiaomi continues to fully embrace the Android ecosystem through our MIUI software platform and we’re moving ahead full steam building many exciting new Android-based features and services.

In short, Xiaomi is perfectly happy working with Microsoft to let its users try out Windows 10. The agreement doesn’t suggest, however, that any of its existing operations will be changing.

It’s naturally possible that the Windows 10 experiment is a huge success and Xiaomi becomes interested in shipping devices with Microsoft’s upcoming operating system. For now, though, nothing of the sort is in the works.

Google today updated its Android Device Manager service with support for Android Wear. In other words, you can now find your lost smartphone using your smartwatch.

The company says watch owners don’t need to do anything to enable this new feature. The functionality is rolling out to all Android Wear devices “over the next few weeks.”

To find your lost Android device from your wrist, just say “OK, Google. Start. Find my phone,” or select the “Find my phone” option in the Start menu. Your phone will ring at full volume, which will hopefully be enough to hear it and locate it.

Google introduced Android Device Manager in August 2013 as a website and app for finding lost phones and tablets (available for devices running Android 2.2 Froyo and above). If your device is out of earshot, the service lets you locate it on a map in real time.

That’s not all. If, for whatever reason, your device cannot be found or retrieved, Android Device Manager also lets you securely erase all of the data on your device. This ensures your data doesn’t end up in the wrong hands.

Google today revealed that since launching the service, Android Device Manager has helped reunite almost 30 million users with their phones and tablets. That’s not a huge number given that Android has over a billion users, but it’s still a sizable group.

Given that Android Wear is still very new, we don’t expect this figure to grow much thanks to today’s release. Still, for hardcore Android users who own both a smartphone and a smartwatch, this is a feature that’s worth familiarizing yourself with.

The new low-cost phone is part of Microsoft’s broader strategy to go after first-time smartphone buyers, particularly in emerging markets. In this case, the Lumia 430 will be available in April in Asia-Pacific countries, India, Africa, the Middle East, Russia, Kazakhstan, Ukraine, and Belarus.

Microsoft knows well that Windows Phone risks falling into irrelevance, as Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android have seized about 95 percent of all market share.

In an interview at Barcelona Mobile World Congress earlier this month, Chris Weber, Microsoft’s corporate vice president of mobile device sales, said the company believes one of its biggest opportunities at the moment is going after Android users.

Weber said Microsoft’s research indicates users of Android are far less loyal than Apple users. The complaints Microsoft says it hears are many of the same ones that Apple likes to point out. Devices are widely fragmented between different versions of Android. Apps work better on some versions of Android, and some form factors, than others. And then there are security issues.

The new Lumia, with a $70 price tag, is aimed squarely at this market. The phone runs on Windows 8.1 but will be eligible for a free upgrade to Windows 10 later this year.

“We need to continue to push price points even lower,” he told VentureBeat in Barcelona. “But it’s not so we can say we have the lowest prices. I want to position us as the best value. These are still no-compromise devices.”

As part of Microsoft’s overall value pitch, it notes that the Lumia 430 naturally comes with Skype, but there’s also 30GB of free OneDrive cloud storage. And the dual SIM is meant to be attractive to travelers.

As for other specs: There’s 8GB of storage, a dual-core 1.2GHz Qualcomm Snapdragon processor, a 4-inch display, and 1GB of RAM.

Early this morning, publisher made the surprise announcement that it is partnering with mobile gaming company DeNA to produce original apps for smartphones and tablets. These games will bring Nintendo brands and characters to new platforms. This is huge news, and it is already having ramifications. The company’s stock price is up big today as Wall Street celebrates Nintendo finally embracing mobile-gaming market — which could hit $30 billion this year, according to research firm Newzoo.

This is huge news that could change what the future of the industry looks like.

“I really think there is gaming before and after March 17, 2015,” analyst and consultant Dr. Serkan Toto told GamesBeat. “This is probably the biggest news in gaming in recent years. Nintendo doing mobile apps is an earthquake that will change the entire games industry, globally.”

A new hunting ground

Toto attended Nintendo’s and DeNA’s joint announcement event, and he tweeted out information as it was breaking. He said that he’s never seen such a huge response to gaming news before on social media.

“For Nintendo, this move means that they are caving in,” he said. “But that is OK. They have been publicly downplaying the importance of mobile and looking down on that market for over five years. But it’s clear now that they were at a point where they were forced into this about-face.”

Piers Harding-Rolls, the director of games research at intelligence firm, IHS agrees. He says that Nintendo came to its senses.

‘Nintendo’s decision to partner with DeNA is a recognition of the importance of the games app audience to the future of its business,” said Harding-Rolls. “Not only is there significant revenue to be made directly from smartphone and tablet consumers for Nintendo, app ecosystems are also very important in reaching new customers to make them aware of the Nintendo brand and to drive a new and broader audience to its dedicated console business.”

IHS’s data claims that downloadable game apps made $26 billion in 2014 but that dedicated handheld software — like the 3DS — only made $3.3 billion. By partnering with DeNA, Nintendo can keep raking in that handheld money while simultaneously creeping into the mobile space.

The odd couple

“This alliance makes commercial sense on many levels,” said Harding-Rolls. “The main challenge will be knitting together the cultures of both companies and aligning the speed of development and iteration that is needed in the mobile space with Nintendo’s more patient and systematic approach to games-content production.”

Nintendo and DeNA may also run into issues with how these new mobile games make money. Iwata has already expressed that its app will not use certain mechanics that are popular in Japan and are great at extracting money from players.

One example is the virtual gacha machine, which is named after those coin-operated toy-dispenser machines that spit out plastic capsules filled with goodies that you might see at the grocery store. Mobile publishers have used these to coax players to spend money on the chance that they may get the character or item they want. Nearly every game on DeNA’s Mobage platform use this. Nintendo doesn’t like it. Hell, even the Japanese government doesn’t like them. It stepped in to regulate this monetization technique in 2012 to eliminate a particular implementation of the concept that forced players to collect an entire set before being able to get a specific — and often powerful — piece of kit.

But the Japanese government aside, Nintendo and DeNA are both in a situation where they cannot get to picky with how they make money. Each company has failed to keep up with competition, and they are in this partnership to do something about that.

They need each other

“Despite big investments in smartphone-game development and international expansion, DeNA has struggled in recent years,” IHS mobile media research head Jack Ken said. “Its initial success was based on developing mobile web games for Japanese mobile social-games community, as the market has shifted toward native smartphone games, it has been overtaken by domestic competitors such as Puzzles & Dragons publisher GungHo.”

DeNA is No. 8 in terms of the top-grossing mobile publishers in Japan, according to App Annie. It doesn’t rank in the top 10 worldwide.

Nintendo has had similar issues.

“The 3DS is aging quickly, and the Wii U is a lost cause, and their new quality-of-life business unit failed to attract interest,” said Toto.

But now Nintendo has embraced mobile, and it’s here to rescue the publisher. Right? Well, that’s not guranteed.

“It can be argued that Nintendo was too slow to mobile,” said Toto.

“[Nintendo and DeNA] first discussed a partnership as far back as 2010,” said Kent. “Now, five years later, there is a risk that despite the benefits each party brings, it could be too late to take full advantage of their strengths.”

As always, it will come down to the games. Normally, that’s something that I think no one would doubt Nintendo could handle. But mobile gaming is different than what the House of Mario has done for the last 30 years, and it’ll need to learn about free-to-play, user acquisition, and games-as-a-service techniques from DeNA.

That’s the only way this partnership will really pay off.

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]]>0Nintendo on mobile ‘is an earthquake that will change the entire games industry’How this 14-year-old girl designed, developed, and released her own mobile gamehttp://venturebeat.com/2015/03/16/how-this-14-year-old-girl-designed-developed-and-released-her-own-mobile-game/
http://venturebeat.com/2015/03/16/how-this-14-year-old-girl-designed-developed-and-released-her-own-mobile-game/#commentsMon, 16 Mar 2015 22:30:40 +0000http://venturebeat.com/?p=1680041Crazy Block is the first game from young, Spanish developer Lucia Sanchez.
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When I was 14, the coolest thing I made was a 2-by-4 piece of wood that had a wedge in it. I used it to take off my snowy or muddy boots without having to use my hands. I wasn’t crafty, but it turns out now all 14-year-old kids aren’t like me — at least when it comes to code.

Crazy Block is a new free Android game available right now on Google Play. It’s also the creation of 14-year-old Spanish girl Lucia Sanchez, who taught herself how to develop a game and released it earlier this month all on her own. She is the latest example of how open tools and platforms are enabling anyone with the will to make game and find an audiences.

Sanchez is from Alicante, a town in Southeast Spain. She’s a student, and — in addition to developing games — she’s into windsurfing, painting, and reading. Sanchez is also a web designer. We spoke with her to ask her more about Crazy Block, her process, and more.

“I started making games about two years ago, when my parents bought me a new computer,” Sanchez told GamesBeat. “I found on the Internet the story about a boy who was 14 years old and had created a game that had over a million downloads, so I though that was amazing and I wanted to do something like that.”

When Sanchez decided to get serious about pursuing her goal to release a game, she picked out a game-design tool called Stencyl, which is a code-free drag-and-drop game-creation kit. Many developers use when they’re first getting started, and some notable Stencyl releases include Flash game Mibibli’s Quest and Ghost Song, which is on Steam.

Sanchez chose Stencyl because she thought it was easy. Turns out that she was wrong.

“When I started using it, I realized how difficult it was,” she said.

Persistence pays off

Above: A glimpse of Crazy Block from Lucia Sanchez.

Image Credit: Lucia Sanchez

Now, after running into any sort of difficulty is probably where I would’ve given up. But not Sanchez. Without classes and without a teacher looking over her shoulder, she pushed through and figured it out all on her own.

“I actually didn’t get any help,” Sanchez said. “The only help I had was YouTube videos and the Internet.”

Having a clear goal was a real benefit for Sanchez. From the beginning, she wanted to make something that she could release on phones. She understood the process and kept at it.

“It took me about two years,” she said. “And for me, the best part was designing the levels. I designed each level on a piece of paper before doing it on the computer. It was also a challenging part because sometimes it was hard to think of new levels.”

But again, she just continued working and eventually got to a point where she was happy with the experience.

“I decided to release Crazy Block when I felt I had a good amount of levels, and I had tested it many times,” she said. “When I released it on Google Play, I felt incredibly happy. I could’t believe it as I had been working on it for two years. Seeing my game in the store made me feel really proud of myself.”

Learning by doing

So far, Crazy Block has not reached “hit” status. It is sitting at around 150 installs, according to Sanchez. And while the game has ads, she says it isn’t making any money. But she doesn’t mind that.

“I think what I have learned from making a game is way more valuable than money,” she said.

And what did she learn? Well, I’ll let her explain.

“Making Crazy Block for me was a great experience,” she said. “When I started with the game, it was really difficult for me as I didn’t have any experience with programming. Every time an error appeared, I didn’t know what to do. One time I even wanted to give up with the game, but watching tutorial, and with help from the internet, I came up with Crazy Block.”

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]]>0How this 14-year-old girl designed, developed, and released her own mobile gameTwitter cripples Meerkat by cutting off access to its social graphhttp://venturebeat.com/2015/03/13/twitter-cripples-meerkat-by-cutting-off-access-to-its-social-graph/
http://venturebeat.com/2015/03/13/twitter-cripples-meerkat-by-cutting-off-access-to-its-social-graph/#commentsSat, 14 Mar 2015 03:51:51 +0000http://venturebeat.com/?p=1679199The move gives Periscope, which Twitter just bought, a big advantage as it will surely launch with access to Twitter's social graph.
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For Meerkat, the live streaming video mobile app that’s taken the digerati by storm the past two weeks, being able to automatically connect users to their Twitter followers is essential. So by cutting off that access today in the wake of announcing it had bought a competing app, Twitter has dealt Meerkat a tough blow.

The move to cut off access to its so-called social graph, which was first reported by BuzzFeed, means that Meerkat posts will not automatically push notifications to users’ Twitter followers. It came the same day Twitter announced it had bought Periscope, an as-yet-unlaunched live-streaming app. It was also the first day of the South by Southwest Interactive (SXSW) festival, which is being held in Austin, Texas.

Because it was the first day of SXSW, during which apps are frequently launched, a third live-streaming app, Stre.am, did so today. That launch was first reported by VentureBeat.

A Twitter spokesperson told VentureBeat that, “We are limiting [Meerkat’s] access to Twitter’s social graph, consistent with our internal policy. Their users will still be able to distribute videos on Twitter and login with their Twitter credentials.”

Twitter’s decision is clearly meant to give Periscope an advantage, since its users will no doubt have access to Twitter’s social graph. If Twitter doesn’t reverse the change, that will mean Meerkat will have to hope its users care enough to organically build a following.

Meerkat did get a nice running start before the change, and was certainly the tech world’s darling since it launched in late February. But as investor Hunter Walk put it tonight, “the[Meerkat] Suggested User List just became more important,” meaning the app will have to give its users an easy way to find interesting people to follow.

But Meerkat remains defiant. In a series of tweets this evening, founder Ben Rubin said that “Twitter’s move here shows how significant Meerkat has become. This is a small bump for Meerkat — a product built in only 8 weeks by one person — and a sad day for the Twitter developer community, who build amazing products that help us connect with each other. And lastly, this is just the beginning for Meerkat. The revolution will be live streamed.”

The Android interface builder Cyanogen is said to be close to raising a $110 million funding round. Microsoft had been in talks with the startup to become an investor, but is now said to have bowed out, Bloomberg reports.

Palo Alto, Calif.-based Cyanogen needs more capital to get its user interface software onto more Android devices, says Bloomberg, citing people with knowledge of the matter.

PremjiInvest (Wipro Ltd. Chairman Azim Premji’s investment firm) will be among the investors in the new funding round, Bloomberg reports. If the funding round comes to pass, it could propel Cyanogen to a $500 million valuation.

Reports in late January said that Microsoft intended to make an estimated $70 million investment in Cyanogen to become a “minority investor.” Those reports turned out to be false, and the report today that Microsoft has backed out could be false, too.

Bloomberg’s sources say Microsoft remains in talks with Cyanogen to get Microsoft software integrated with Cyanogen’s. The publication provided no further detail on the Microsoft software in question and how it would complement Cyanogen’s Android fork.

Cyanogen has some top-shelf investors behind it already. These include Benchmark, Andreessen Horowitz, and Redpoint Ventures.

First announced in January, the new feature is available today — if you have an Android device or use Google’s Chrome browser on the desktop. Google teases that it’s “working to bring this to iPhone, iPad and other devices soon.” Oh, the suspense.

The launch arrives at the perfect time in the video world, as both 360-degree cameras and virtual reality devices (like Google Cardboard) become more affordable (note: still not cheap) than ever before.

Google today released a new sample app called Universal Music Player that works on smartphones, tablets, Android Auto, Android Wear, and Google Cast devices. The word “sample” is key here: This is a reference design for developers so they can learn how to implement a service that works across multiple form factors.

That’s exactly why this audio media app isn’t being released on Google Play. It’s available on GitHub so developers can grab the source code and adapt their own app accordingly.

The Universal Music Player is very bare-bones, though it is functional. Again, the most important part here is not just that it supports multiple devices and form factors, but that it does so using a single codebase.

The sample uses a number of new Android 5.0 Lollipop features, like MediaStyle notifications, MediaSession, and MediaBrowserService, that make it easier to implement media browsing and playback on multiple devices with a single app version. As Google explains, “It is now possible to bring the benefits of your app to your users wherever they happen to be, no matter what device they have near them.”

This is a mantra that Microsoft is looking to push as well (especially with Windows 10), across PCs, tablets, smartphones, and even Xbox One. Yet both companies are still in the very early days of this strategy.

That’s because many still believe that each app should be built from the ground up for each device type. Google and Microsoft still want developers to customize for each platform, but the argument is that it is easier to do so if a lot of the code is reused across devices.

If they succeed, and developers can spend less time developing for more platforms, we can all expect even more apps. At the end of the day, that’s exactly what Google and Microsoft want, on their own respective platforms.

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]]>0Google offers developers a sample Android app that works across phones, tablets, smartwatches, cars, and moreIDC: Tablet shipment growth slows to a crawl, will grow just 2% in 2015http://venturebeat.com/2015/03/12/idc-tablet-shipment-growth-slows-to-a-crawl-will-grow-just-2-in-2015/
http://venturebeat.com/2015/03/12/idc-tablet-shipment-growth-slows-to-a-crawl-will-grow-just-2-in-2015/#commentsThu, 12 Mar 2015 13:41:52 +0000http://venturebeat.com/?p=1677888After noting the decline of tablet shipments in February, the International Data Corporation is scaling back its expectations for tablet shipments this year.
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Though Android is currently the leader in number of tablets shipped, IDC expects its market share to drop. The corporation says it expects Android shipment volumes to grow marginally this year, from 154.7 million in 2014 to 158.1 million in 2015. But its expectations for 2019 are dismal. IDC predicts that Android will make 169.5 shipments in 2019, but its market share will drop to 62.9 percent from 67.3 percent in 2014.

iOS tablets are the biggest losers according to these estimates, however. IDC thinks that iOS tablets will lose traction this year, with shipment volumes declining from 63.4 million to 60.1 million in 2015. In 2019, the corporation only expects Apple to see 61.9 million tablet shipments. Furthermore, IDC says, Apple will see its market share atrophy from 27.6 percent in 2014 to 23 percent in 2019.

The only company for whom this report is not totally bleak is Windows. The report says that Windows tablet shipments will actually grow from 11.6 million in 2014 to 16.3 million this year. By 2019, IDC says, Windows tablets will be shipping a volume of 38 million. It also sees Windows tablets claiming a larger share of the market in the years to come, from 5.1 percent in 2014 to 14 percent in 2019.

“Microsoft is doing a lot of good things right now and we believe the launch of Windows 10 later this year will not only have a significant impact on Microsoft’s share of the market, but on the industry as a whole,” said Jean Philippe Bouchard, research director, tablets.

The reason tablet shipments are declining is in part due to the rise of the phablet. With an increasing number of screen display sizes availble, large phones are eating into tablet sales.

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]]>0IDC: Tablet shipment growth slows to a crawl, will grow just 2% in 2015WhatsApp hits 1 billion installs on Android, the second non-Google app to do sohttp://venturebeat.com/2015/03/12/whatsapp-becomes-the-second-non-google-app-to-hit-1-billion-installs-on-android/
http://venturebeat.com/2015/03/12/whatsapp-becomes-the-second-non-google-app-to-hit-1-billion-installs-on-android/#commentsThu, 12 Mar 2015 11:23:12 +0000http://venturebeat.com/?p=1677839WhatsApp for Android has now notched up a staggering one billion downloads on Android alone, making it only the second non-Google app to achieve this milestone.
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While many questioned whether Facebook had paid too much to acquire WhatsApp last year, the mobile messaging app’s already-formidable numbers continue to impress more than 12 months on.

Indeed, WhatsApp for Android has now notched up a staggering one billion downloads on Android alone, making it only the second non-Google app to achieve this milestone. We know this because Google Play publishes installation ranges for each app, and in WhatsApp’s case this now shows as being between 1 billion and 5 billion downloads.

Above: WhatsApp: killing it

Of course, this doesn’t mean that one billion people on Android are actively using the app — back in January, WhatsApp revealed it has 700 million monthly active users (MAU) across iOS and Android, 70 percent of whom are active each and every day. Two months on, that MAU figure will no doubt have increased, but it’s hard to say exactly how many of the 1 billion-plus Android installs are active users.

Also, it’s worth noting here that while Google calculates app downloads on a per-account basis rather than per device, it doesn’t consider those who have uninstalled the app. So this doesn’t mean there are 1 billion people or devices out there with WhatsApp currently installed.

Nonetheless, very few apps have achieved such a high number of downloads — Gmail, Google Maps, and YouTube have managed it, while Facebook became the first non-Google service to meet that magic milestone last year. Now with WhatsApp, Facebook has two applications with at least one billion Android installations each.

While the $22 billion price tag may still seem a little hefty, Facebook knew what it was buying into when it took on the mobile messaging app last year — it was future-proofing itself and ensuring it remained relevant as a company, at a time when there are so many different means of communication at our disposal.

]]>0WhatsApp hits 1 billion installs on Android, the second non-Google app to do soBento Labs’ new Android home screen is a sweet alternative to Google Nowhttp://venturebeat.com/2015/03/11/bento-labs-funding/
http://venturebeat.com/2015/03/11/bento-labs-funding/#commentsWed, 11 Mar 2015 16:00:04 +0000http://venturebeat.com/?p=1677109Bento's home screen could make it much easier to listen to great music or find a nearby restaurant.
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A startup called Bento Labs is launching today with $2 million and an Android home screen that can surface relevant recommendations, even when you haven’t bothered to manually enter preferences and other personal information into applications installed on your phone.

Bento Labs’ chief executive, Nikhil Chandhok, has respect for Google, having spent more than eight years there. And yet, he thinks the home screen he and his small team have created could be a worthy challenger to Google Now, Google’s own system for providing relevant information and ways to engage with apps on mobile devices.

“It is not a very good suggested system,” Chandhok told VentureBeat in an interview. “You first have to figure out what is the reason you want to go there. I think our thesis — and it could be wrong — is that you have to be a home screen to build a system that is going to be interesting, that tells you what to do next. I don’t think Google Now is going as far as that.”

Bento’s home screen, with its knack for seeding apps with personal details, inherently acknowledges the sprawl of apps that consumers keep on their phones. And it operates with the assumption that the best apps aren’t always the ones with Google’s name on them.

The thing is, other companies might think those are good ideas. So Bento could face a good bit of competition.

“You have to believe that every chat application, every Android device maker — every once of those guys — is trying to build something on the home screen that is contextual and that is relevant to the user,” Chandhok said.

And yet, here comes Bento, which already has several application programming interface (API) partners, including Reddit, SoundCloud, Uber, Yelp, and even Google-owned YouTube.

Initially, Bento is focusing on music and local services. Practically speaking, Bento can learn what music you like to listen to in one music app and then surface songs to play in another music app. Or Bento can let make apps like Uber or Yelp remember important addresses, saving you time.

In time, Bento could expand its reach and start to include social applications,.

“Now you have this notion of, ‘Hey, apps are sharing this data without actually having to do one-off integrations between apps,'” Chandhok said.

Formerly an entrepreneur in residence at Google Ventures, Chandhok founded Bento Labs with Kunal Punera, previously the head of data products engineering at RelateIQ, last June. Now the San Francisco startup employs seven people.

The seed funding for Bento comes from First Round Capital, Google Ventures, the Social+Capital Partnership, and Susa Ventures, as well as some angel investors.

Starting today, you can sign up for an invite-only beta of Bento’s home screen. While you’re waiting for access, check out this video, which shows Bento’s home screen making some smart recommendations:

]]>0Bento Labs’ new Android home screen is a sweet alternative to Google NowGoogle confirms Android 5.1 is rolling out today, will support multi-SIM devices and HD callshttp://venturebeat.com/2015/03/09/google-confirms-android-5-1-is-landing-on-all-compatible-devices-from-today/
http://venturebeat.com/2015/03/09/google-confirms-android-5-1-is-landing-on-all-compatible-devices-from-today/#commentsMon, 09 Mar 2015 21:16:36 +0000http://venturebeat.com/?p=1675879Google is rolling out Android 5.1 to compatible devices from today, the company has confirmed in a blog post.
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Google is rolling out Android 5.1 from today, the company has confirmed in a blog post.

We revealed last month that Android 5.1 Lollipop would be shipping first on Android One devices in Indonesia, but today’s news signals the arrival of the mobile operating system on all other compatible handsets around the world.

Above: Choose Your SIM

Image Credit: Google

The update doesn’t bring a major upgrade to Android, however in addition to the usual stability tweaks that typically come with each iteration of the operating system, there are a few notable additions — these include support for HD calls for compatible devices (e.g. Nexus 6) and networks (Verizon, T-Mobile).

Futhermore, Android 5.1 also offers official support for multi-SIM devices — though there is already a number of dual-SIM Android phones on the market, they typically require extra SIM management software to work properly. Now, support comes native to Android, meaning you can elect which SIM you’ll use for any given task from the get go.

Perhaps the most interesting new feature, however, is “Device Protection” which basically means that if you lose your phone, it stays locked until you sign in with your Google credentials — even if someone rolls your handset back to factory settings if they find/steal your phone. Google says this will be made available to “most phones and tablets” that ship with Android 5.1, as well as its own Nexus 6 and Nexus 9 devices.

In terms of when this update will be landing on your phone or tablet, Google does say it’s rolling out today, but that usually means to its own Nexus range of devices — the actual date of arrival for you will depend on the manufacturer.

]]>0Google confirms Android 5.1 is rolling out today, will support multi-SIM devices and HD callsOnePlus One smartphone launches in 16 more countries, now available across the whole E.U.http://venturebeat.com/2015/03/09/oneplus-one-smartphone-launches-in-16-more-countries-and-is-now-available-across-the-whole-e-u/
http://venturebeat.com/2015/03/09/oneplus-one-smartphone-launches-in-16-more-countries-and-is-now-available-across-the-whole-e-u/#commentsMon, 09 Mar 2015 16:29:13 +0000http://venturebeat.com/?p=1675409OnePlus has announced it's officially launching its One Android smartphone in 16 more European countries.
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OnePlus has announced that its One (and only!) Android smartphone is officially available in 16 more markets, effectively meaning it’s accessible to everyone across the entire European Union (E.U.).

OnePlus has garnered a lot of headlines over the past year, primarily because it offers a premium-spec phone with an affordable $299/$349 (16GB/64GB) price tag. It launched originally in 17 countries in Western Europe, Asia, and North America, before rolling out in India and Indonesia too. However, the China-based smartphone maker has been criticized for making it too difficult to procure one of the phones, as it has largely operated an invite-only system — but last month it removed this system for a 24-hour period each Tuesday, meaning anyone can place an order on that day.

Today’s news almost doubles the number of markets it’s available in, with those in Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Estonia, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, and Slovenia now able to purchase a 16GB (white) or 64GB (black) version of the phone, costing €269 or €299. But as with other markets, it’s only fully open for business on Tuesdays — if you’re looking to buy on another day of the week, you’ll need an invite. Invites can be procured from others who have already bought a OnePlus One phone.

We know it has taken some time to get here. But it is important for us to do things right rather than do them fast. We took time to build a network that could support the extra logistics and needs of users before making this next step.

It’s been a rapid year of growth for OnePlus, expanding from 30 to 700 employees, and it’s already teasing a follow-up device — the OnePlus Two — which has been touted for third-quarter launch this year. Interestingly, the company is also promising a “new product category” this coming April, though there are no details of what this could be — a new phone or tablet has been ruled out, though.

OnePlus is also working to produce its own OxygenOS, a variant of Google’s Android Lollipop OS, which will eventually replace its existing CyanogenMod 11S Android fork.

]]>0OnePlus One smartphone launches in 16 more countries, now available across the whole E.U.Google releases new Android Wear ad right before Apple Watch eventhttp://venturebeat.com/2015/03/09/google-releases-new-android-wear-ad-right-before-apple-watch-event/
http://venturebeat.com/2015/03/09/google-releases-new-android-wear-ad-right-before-apple-watch-event/#commentsMon, 09 Mar 2015 16:15:19 +0000http://venturebeat.com/?p=1675435Timely.
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In other words, the Apple Watch may be customizable, but it’s nothing compared to Android Wear. For starters, devices using Google’s platform can be circular or rectangular. You can choose the watch you want from the manufacturer you want — you’re not just limited to what one company produces. In other words, Android is the Windows of the mobile world.

The ad is part of the company’s recent “Be Together. Not the Same” campaign, which debuted along with Android 5.0 Lollipop in October 2014. The campaign was also pushed at CES 2015, not just by Google but by its hardware partners as well. While the ads have been largely focused on smartphones, the message does trickle down to tablets and wearables as well.

The ad released today isn’t really anything special. It’s not the cutest Android ad we’ve ever seen, nor is it particularly ingenious. All the ad shows is a bunch of dancing people wearing watches — there’s even a bit of a similarity to the early Microsoft Surface ads, and that’s not a good thing.

It is timely, though.

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]]>0Google releases new Android Wear ad right before Apple Watch eventNo Nexus 6, no Google wireless service for you, claims reporthttp://venturebeat.com/2015/03/05/no-nexus-6-no-google-wireless-service-for-you-claims-report/
http://venturebeat.com/2015/03/05/no-nexus-6-no-google-wireless-service-for-you-claims-report/#commentsFri, 06 Mar 2015 00:34:51 +0000http://venturebeat.com/?p=1674120Google confirmed this week it will offer the service, but has not said which devices it will work on.
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Google confirmed this week that it is planning to offer its own wireless service, but if you don’t have one of the company’s Nexus 6 phones, it looks like you can forget about using that service.

Speaking at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain, this week, Google’s head of Android, Sundar Pichai, said that the company is planning on entering the mobile virtual network operator (MVNO) space in the United States. What he didn’t say was which devices would work on the network.

According to the Wall Street Journal, there’s one catch to the plan: it will only work on the Nexus 6 phone.

“The service, designed to switch among Wi-Fi and cellular networks, will initially be available only on the latest Nexus 6 smartphone designed by Google and made by Motorola Mobility,” the Wall Street Journal wrote, citing two sources. “One of the people said the service won’t work with older Nexus devices, such as LG Electronics‘ Nexus 5.”

Google did not immediately respond to a VentureBeat request for comment.

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]]>0No Nexus 6, no Google wireless service for you, claims report10 Microsoft mobile apps that don’t yet exist on Windows Phonehttp://venturebeat.com/2015/03/04/10-microsoft-mobile-apps-that-dont-yet-exist-on-windows-phone/
http://venturebeat.com/2015/03/04/10-microsoft-mobile-apps-that-dont-yet-exist-on-windows-phone/#commentsWed, 04 Mar 2015 17:11:32 +0000http://venturebeat.com/?p=1669742Feature:Microsoft strives to make much of its software available cross-platform, but it also builds quite a few mobile apps specifically for the competition. Here's 10 of those.
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While Apple is a hardware business first and foremost, many non-Apple users would probably love to see Apple make the likes of GarageBand, iMovie, iTunes, iBooks, or even TestFlight (well, developers would) available for other mobile platforms. But it doesn’t.

The same can’t be said for the more software-focused companies such as Google and Microsoft, however, with both targeting the iOS fraternity with their wares. The latter caters for the Android realm too, and just last week Microsoft launched yet another Android app, Keyboard for Excel, delivering a keyboard “optimized for numbers.”

The favors aren’t always reciprocated, however, with Google no longer offering an official YouTube app for Windows Phone, for example, leaving Microsoft to develop a version for itself. And Apple likely would scoff at the notion of building anything for Windows Phone.

Though Microsoft strives to make much of its software available cross-platform, including Office and Outlook, Keyboard for Excel served as another reminder that it often creates applications for its competitors while ignoring its own mobile operating system. In fact, just today, Microsoft finally launched its Remote Desktop app for Windows Phone out of preview, having been available on Android and iOS since 2013.

So here’s a look at 10 Microsoft mobile apps that have yet to appear on Windows Phone.

1) Keyboard for Excel

Keyboard for Excel is an Android-only keyboard app that gives priority to operator keys on the keyboard, and also offers a 10-key digit layout for faster entry.

Sway automatically creates presentations out of a user’s text, pictures, and videos. It’s kind of like a souped-up version of PowerPoint, built purely with the cloud in mind. There’s no file-formats to contend with — just URLs, embeds, and other web-friendly sharing features.

Available in the U.S. App Store only for now, Microsoft has confirmed that it will eventually arrive on Android and Windows too.

5) Study Portal

Available on Android and iOS, Microsoft’s reasonably new Study Portal app is an invite-only affair that lets users participate in surveys and user studies — that’s about as much as we can ascertain about this app. Whatever it does, it’s apparently not available for Windows Phone users yet.

Above: Study Portal for Android

6) Next Lock Screen

The Next Lock Screen app for Android is another offering from Microsoft Garage, one that gives you access to key information directly from your, well, lock screen.

Similar to other lock screen apps, you can see messages, missed calls, and more without unlocking your device.

Above: Next Lock Screen for Android

7) Picturesque

Not content with one Android lock screen app, Microsoft Garage actually launched a second one called Picturesque, designed very much with Microsoft’s search engine in mind.

Indeed, Picturesque brings Bing home page images and search directly to your lock screen, letting you shake your device or swipe to change the image it uses. You can also see missed calls and text messages, weather, news, and more.

8) Journeys & Notes

Another Android-only affair from the vaults of Microsoft Garage, Journeys & Notes is a social travel app that seeks to connect a community of users who have traveled on similar routes.

Users can check in, leave notes for others who may venture on that same path, or discover perils and pearls of knowledge left by others.

9) On{X}

On{X} for Android is a fairly low-key Microsoft app that’s been around for a few years. It’s basically an IFTTT-style recipe app that lets you automate actions on your device, such as location-based reminders to charge your phone as soon as you arrive home, or automatically respond to “Where?” questions in text messages with your current location.

Microsoft doesn’t update the app all that much, and it requires your Facebook ID to log in, which will put off many people.

Above: on{X} for Android

10) Torque

Torque works in cahoots with mobile web search and voice commands, letting you shake your phone to search the web, text your buddies, or even make a phone call. It’s similar to Google’s very own “OK Google” feature; however, this is powered by Microsoft.

So there you have it — 10 mobile apps built by Microsoft specifically for its competitors. That’s not to say they won’t appear on Windows in the future, once the tech titan has iterated these, many of which are ‘experimental’, and established a demand for the products.

Facebook thinks that mobile phones are changing the world, and sees a future where everything starts with our mobile-connected lives. What follows from that, if done right, can be happy users and profitable businesses.

This week, thousands of mobile company executives and others are gathered in Barcelona, Spain for Mobile World Congress. Yesterday, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg keynoted there, explaining that Internet.org, the company’s nonprofit effort to bring connectivity to new users in developing countries, is helping carriers win new customers.

Today, Facebook is sharing its thoughts on the trends in a mobile-first future. In a blog post, Jane Schachtel, the company’s global head of technology and mobile strategy, explained her vision for that future.

“Mobile phones have existed in one form or another for more than 30 years now, and every day they’re becoming more entwined in people’s lives,” Facebook wrote in its post. “But we are only in the early days of living in a mobile world. Today, a person’s mobile experience depends largely on where they live.”

In the developed world, countless people are using high-end Android phones and iPhones, and connecting via fast mobile networks, while in developing nations, networks are slower, and more people use basic phones. “For many people in these countries mobile phones are also a first point of entry to the Internet.”

With that in mind, here’s Schachtel’s look at the five trends she sees for the future.

More affordable smartphones. Schachtel noted that she foresees significant innovation in the proliferation of low-cost smartphones “that offer better performance and better features for less money.” The benefits, she said, are that more people will get connected, and manufacturers will find new customers by targeting their devices at specific demographics, like millennials, “hoping they’ll become future long-term customers.”

New focus on mobile commerce. As more and more people are conducting transactions via their mobile devices. But there’s still huge untapped opportunity there, Schachtel noted. “More technology and telecom businesses need to adapt their business models to mobile, and I expect to see new solutions from operators that make it easier for people to buy and sell things through their phones.”

Differentiation. In many developed countries, Schachtel said, it’s hard for device makers to stand out as almost everyone already has a phone, many of which look the same and offer more or less the same features. Without standing out, manufacturers struggle to build brand loyalty, and in the process deal with increased customer churn. But by finding ways to make their devices more personal to users — “focusing, for instance, on the emotional role they play in our lives rather than the latest technical specs” — manufacturers could reverse that trend. That would be aided by getting users to buy more products from the device makers, Schachtel said. “Device manufacturers are now introducing gadgets like watches and selfie-cams to pair with phones and tablets,” a dynamic known as “device families.”

Better network capabilities. In the first world, users are consuming huge amounts of video content, Schachtel said, and that trend will only increase. As a result, carriers have little choice but to boost their networks’ capabilities and reliability. “I expect to see lots about 5G networks, as well as ways of delivering video to more people on slower networks. … It’s become essential to understand creative best practices for mobile experiences, and the changing ways in which people consume video.”

Making the Internet of Things important. Schachtel said she expects the near future to be filled with talk about the Internet of Things — connected devices like the Nest smart thermostat or the August smart lock — and what she called “machine to machine” connections. Too, she said, Apple’s watch will likely spawn large numbers of second-gen smart watches. “With the Internet of Things, the big challenge remains showing people how connected devices can be meaningful additions to their lives, rather than just being cool pieces of tech.”

In the end, Schachtel concluded, mobile means great opportunities and exciting times for users and businesses. “As more people come online and new technologies become more widely available,” she wrote, “we’ll continue to see more sophisticated solutions for connecting the world. And that’s good for people, and good for businesses.”

]]>0Facebook’s 5 trends for an exciting, profitable, mobile-first futureChrome 42 will be the last version to support Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwichhttp://venturebeat.com/2015/03/03/chrome-42-will-be-the-last-version-to-support-android-4-0-ice-cream-sandwich/
http://venturebeat.com/2015/03/03/chrome-42-will-be-the-last-version-to-support-android-4-0-ice-cream-sandwich/#commentsTue, 03 Mar 2015 17:38:05 +0000http://venturebeat.com/?p=1672171Google is starting to kill off support for Android 4.0.
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Google today announced Chrome will be dropping support for Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich (ICS). This change will go into effect with the release of Chrome 42, the last version for ICS and which is currently slated to arrive in mid-April.

After Chrome 42, ICS devices won’t get any more updates. In other words, when Chrome 43 is released at the end of May, it won’t work on ICS. These Android users will be able to keep using Chrome, of course, but they’ll be stuck on the old version.

Android 4.0 was first released in December 2011. When Chrome first arrived as a beta for Android devices in February 2012, it was only available for ICS, the latest version of Android at the time. Since then, Google has released 24 new Chrome versions and three new major Android versions (Jelly Bean, KitKat, and Lollipop).

Here is the company’s explanation as to why it is dropping support for Android 4.0:

In the last year, we’ve seen the number of Chrome users running ICS drop by thirty percent. Developing new features on older phones has become increasingly challenging, and supporting ICS takes time away from building new experiences on the devices owned by the vast majority of our users.

While the number of Ice Cream Sandwich devices is shrinking, supporting them in terms of engineering effort and technical complexity is increasingly difficult over time. Each new feature or web capability that’s added to Chrome must be built and tested for ICS. Often workarounds and special cases have to be added specifically for ICS, and that adds code complexity, slows performance, and increases development time. The number of ICS devices is now sufficiently small that we can better serve our users by phasing out support for earlier devices and focusing on making Chrome better for the vast majority of users on more modern devices.

Google is getting the 30 percent figure quote above from its Platform Versions page, which is based on data gathered from the Google Play Store app. The Android adoption figures were updated just yesterday, and the latest figures peg ICS at 5.9 percent adoption:

ICS peaked in February 2013 at 29 percent adoption. It has been dropping ever since as new Android versions and new devices shipping with them have been released.

Google’s decision today is a big deal and sets a precedent for other Android apps. Many new releases support Android 4.0 and above, but if Google is starting to drop support, third-party developers may consider following suit.

]]>0Chrome 42 will be the last version to support Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich5 keys to the future of mobile according to Android cofounder Rich Miner (interview)http://venturebeat.com/2015/03/03/5-keys-to-the-future-of-mobile-according-to-android-co-founder-rich-miner-interview/
http://venturebeat.com/2015/03/03/5-keys-to-the-future-of-mobile-according-to-android-co-founder-rich-miner-interview/#commentsTue, 03 Mar 2015 17:30:36 +0000http://venturebeat.com/?p=1672087Pen-based computing. Enterprise. Mobile ads. Voice-activated services. Payments. Miner says to watch them all closely to understand how mobile is going to change the world.
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BARCELONA, Spain – For the past 25 years, Rich Miner has been at the center of developing a number of technologies that have had a substantial impact on our lives.

Most recently, that included being cofounder of Android, the company acquired by Google almost a decade ago that developed the operating system that now powers about 85 percent of all mobile gadgets sold. For the past five years, he’s also been a partner with Google Ventures. And along the way, he was a cofounder of Wildfire, the voice-based personal assistant.

All of this gives him an interesting depth and breadth of experience in terms of how mobile has changed the world, and what forces are continuing to shape the mobile computing revolution. I sat down with Miner this week at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona for a wide-ranging conversation.

Here are five things Miner believes are going to shape mobile computing in the coming years:

1. Payments: Miner firmly believes that mobile payments are a fundamental use case for smartphones and wearables going forward. But he says the mobile payment systems we’ve seen so far don’t go far enough in revolutionizing payments. He says things like Apple Pay fall short because they simply re-create the basic payment process, just substituting a smartphone for a credit card.

Miner says that’s why companies are still rolling out and experimenting with so many systems: Samsung with Samsung Pay announced this week; Google with its wallet and Android Pay API ; and PayPal acquiring Paydiant this week. But for any of these to really click with merchants and consumers, he said they need to offer far more value than just making a payment. There needs to be additional services like rewards, loyalty cards, and much, much more that are rolled into a singular system that enhances the relationship between merchants and customers.

2. Pen-based computing: Because everything old is new again. Miner says Samsung has had success with its Galaxy Note, and this week in Barcelona he’s seeing more gadgets that offer a digital pen or stylus of some kind. These kind of uses are great for meetings or just general note-taking, filling out forms, and taking tests. Particularly because handwriting recognition software is so robust now.

Silicon Valley went through a pen-based computing craze in the early ’90s. And then there was the Palm Pilot. Then Steve Jobs famously hated them. But, apparently, resistance is futile. Miner expects companies to start integrating them even more deeply into the hardware and software, increasing their usefulness. And speaking of businesses…

3. Enterprise: While businesses have been adopting mobile devices, Miner thinks they haven’t really even scratched the surface in terms of how fundamentally smartphones and tablets could reshape every aspect of business workflow. Instead, companies are grafting them onto their current workflows. Note to entrepreneurs everywhere: Miner thinks this is a shortcoming being ignored by startups. He believes there’s a gigantic opportunity for software and services that take all the information gathered by people’s smartphones, tablets, and wearables and use it to automate huge portions of a company’s workflow.

“These things know far more about the movements of your salesperson than that person knows from their own intuition,” Miner said. “All of that stuff — emails, calendar, that he was five minutes late to a meeting — should just flow automatically into a database.”

4. Ads: Another area that no one has completely cracked. Miner points out that a huge chunk of people’s attention has shifted to mobile devices, but only a tiny portion of advertising dollars have followed. Lack of cookies have made it tough for most advertising to be interesting and relevant on phones. Plus, things like banner ads are just duds when it comes to the mobile experience. He says one of his portfolio companies, Yieldmo, has the goal of inventing a new mobile advertising format every day. Yes, every day. Miner said that kind of experimentation is going to be needed to find the formats that convince advertisers to accelerate their spending on mobile.

5. Voice: Considering Miner was a Wildfire cofounder, perhaps this isn’t surprising. But Miner says the power of voice-activated services to control just about everything on your smartphone and many wearables is going to be an important force in reshaping people’s relationship to their gadgets. And in the coming years, as more beacons and sensors are deployed around people’s homes and businesses, and connected gadgets continue to expand, voice is going to become the default way that people interact and control all these devices.

]]>05 keys to the future of mobile according to Android cofounder Rich Miner (interview)Google updates Play Services API with new location features for Android appshttp://venturebeat.com/2015/03/02/google-updates-play-services-api-with-new-location-features-for-android-apps/
http://venturebeat.com/2015/03/02/google-updates-play-services-api-with-new-location-features-for-android-apps/#commentsTue, 03 Mar 2015 02:32:51 +0000http://venturebeat.com/?p=1671793The top features in Google Play Services 7.0 offer tools for Android developers to add location-friendly aspects to their apps.
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Above: Screenshot of Google’s new Place Picker dialog, in Play Services 7.0

The top features in this new API offer tools for developers to add location-friendly aspects to their apps. There’s a new “place picker” dialog that makes it easier for people to select their current location based on the geodata provided by their phone and the database of locations that Google has.

And there’s an enhanced Places API that gives developers access to that location database — including details about specific venues and items within the database — either through Google’s user interface or through their own UI.

Google wrote, “We will be rolling out Google Play services 7.0 over the next few days,” and noted that the software development kit for the new API will be available once that is complete.

Other updates to the API:

Google Fit: The company has updated several of the APIs for its fitness-tracking service.

Google Play Games: There’s support for the new Android game features Google announced today, including the ability to connect an Android tablet or smartphone to a nearby TV as a second screen for gameplay — enabling you to use your smartphone as a controller, for instance.

Google today released its monthly update to the Platform Versions page for Android, and it looks like the latest version has managed to double its adoption share. That’s not saying much, of course, as Android 5.0 Lollipop has only hit 3.3 percent of the pie. Still, that did cut into the growth of Android 4.4 KitKat, once again the only other version to gain adoption share this month.

In fact, KitKat is about to pass Jelly Bean, which encompasses Android 4.1, Android 4.2, and Android 4.3. In other words, there will soon be a new Android king in town:

For the sake of comparison, here’s the Android adoption chart for February:

As with any adoption share updates from this tool, we have to point out that the data is gathered from the Google Play Store app, which requires Android 2.2 and above. This means devices running older versions are not included, nor are devices that don’t have Google Play installed (such as Amazon’s Fire line).

To recap, we currently have Jelly Bean in first, KitKat in second, Gingerbread in third, ICS in fourth, Lollipop in fifth, and Froyo in sixth. KitKat will overtake Jelly Bean before Lollipop passes Gingerbread, as unfortunate as that is.

As we’ve said before, Lollipop’s slow start is not surprising given the lukewarm popularity of the Nexus line and how long it takes for Android device manufacturers to push out updates. Multiple new Android devices were announced at Mobile World Congress today in Barcelona, and more are expected to follow in the coming days.

Nevertheless, Android 5.0 won’t see significant adoption for a few more months.

BARCELONA, Spain — Mountain View, California-based Peel announced today that its customers want more than just a TV remote app. They want an app that controls appliances throughout the home.

So Peel built it.

“Our customers have pushed us to extend our universal remote capabilities beyond TVs, set-top boxes and other entertainment devices to include additional categories of home electronics,” said Peel cofounder Bala Krishnan. “What they are looking for, and what we will provide, is a unified, multi-device, intelligent home experience controlled from a single smart remote app.”

Peel is announcing here at Mobile World Congress that it’s expanding the number of devices controlled by its remote app to include smart thermostats, lighting, air conditioners, and locks.

Through various connection modes, including IR, bluetooth and Wi-Fi, and new interface screens, the Peel app will let users create whole-room presets that involve multiple appliances.

A living room preset might simultaneously turn on the TV and sound system, close the blinds, adjust room temperature, and lower the lights, for example.

The Peel app already comes preloaded on more than half of all Android phones and tablets sold, Peel claimed, and has more than 100 million users worldwide.

Peel’s app for Android lets you set the channel guide to your local TV provider’s channel lineup and track only the channels you care about. For those with a Samsung Galaxy device (or really anything with built-in IR functionality), the app acts as a universal remote, too.

Peel’s other business is a platform play called Peel.in, which is used by major TV networks (CNN, Fox, HBO, History, NBC, etc.) to promote their programs on Facebook and Twitter.